The taste system provides sensory information about the chemical composition of the external world. Taste transduction is one of the most sophisticated forms of chemical-triggered sensation in animals. Signaling of taste is found throughout the animal kingdom, from simple metazoans to the most complex of vertebrates. Mammals are believed to have five basic taste modalities: sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and umami (the taste of monosodium glutamate, a.k.a. savory taste).
Obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease are health concerns on the rise globally, but are growing at alarming rates in the United States. Sugar and calories are key components that can be limited to render a positive nutritional effect on health. High-intensity sweeteners can provide the sweetness of sugar, with various taste qualities. Because they are many times sweeter than sugar, much less of the sweetener is required to replace the sugar.
High-intensity sweeteners have a wide range of chemically distinct structures and hence possess varying properties, such as, without limitation, odor, flavor, mouthfeel, and aftertaste. These properties, particularly flavor and aftertaste, are well known to vary over the time of tasting, such that each temporal profile is sweetener-specific (Tunaley, A., “Perceptual Characteristics of Sweeteners”, Progress in Sweeteners, T. H. Grenby, Ed. Elsevier Applied Science, 1989).
Sweeteners such as saccharin and 6-methyl-1,2,3-oxathiazin-4(3H)-one-2,2-dioxide potassium salt (acesulfame potassium) are commonly characterized as having bitter and/or metallic aftertastes. Products prepared with 2,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid are claimed to display reduced undesirable aftertastes associated with sweeteners, and do so at concentrations below those concentrations at which their own tastes are perceptible. Also, high intensity sweeteners such as sucralose and aspartame are reported to have sweetness delivery problems, i.e., delayed onset and lingering of sweetness (S. G. Wiet, et al., J. Food Sci., 58(3):599-602, 666 (1993)).
It has been reported that an extra-cellular domain, e.g., the Venus flytrap domain of a chemosensory receptor, especially one or more interacting sites within the Venus flytrap domain, is a suitable target for compounds or other entities to modulate the chemosensory receptor and/or its ligands. Certain compounds have been reported to have superior sweet taste enhancing properties and are described in the four patent applications listed below.
(1) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/760,592, entitled “Modulation of Chemosensory Receptors and Ligands Associated Therewith”, filed Jun. 8, 2007; (2) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/836,074, entitled “Modulation of Chemosensory Receptors and Ligands Associated Therewith”, filed Aug. 8, 2007; (3) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 61/027,410, entitled “Modulation of Chemosensory Receptors and Ligands Associated Therewith”, filed Feb. 8, 2008; and (4) International Application No. PCT/US2008/065650, entitled “Modulation of Chemosensory Receptors and Ligands Associated Therewith”, filed Jun. 3, 2008. The content of these applications are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety for all purposes.
The present invention provides novel and inventive sweet taste enhancers with desirable characteristics.